


we’ll dance in the darkness

by argentae



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Phone Calls & Telephones, cerberus is a tiny puppy, it's summer and the kids are missing each other, though it's no heavy angst dw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-04
Updated: 2016-06-04
Packaged: 2018-07-12 02:46:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7081786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/argentae/pseuds/argentae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>persephone contemplates picking up the phone. hades makes the call for her. </p><p>(what a pun)</p>
            </blockquote>





	we’ll dance in the darkness

**Author's Note:**

> first fic on ao3 and also the first thing i'm putting on the internet in like six years so please be gentle w me. unbeta'ed & english isn't my first language so please tell me if i wrote anything stupid. tbh it's 2:30 am rn and i kind of just wanted to get this posted bc i was afraid i'd chicken out later.
> 
> i love hades & persephone a lot and they're v precious to me so i hope this is somewhat nice to read bc i'd like to spread the love!! 
> 
> (title from dance in the graveyards by delta rae)

**i.**

Her hands trail over some flowers on a bush as she walks past them. They blossom under her touch, rising their tender heads as if they are looking at her, following her until she disappears around the corner. She stuffs her hand back in her coat pocket, fingertips now tracing the outline of her phone, trying to decide if she should take it out or keep it hidden away from her longing heartbeat and eager hands. 

In her head, she counts the days. She's happy to be here, to see her friends and her family and enjoy the hot summer sun on her freckled skin. And yet she can't help but miss him, too. 

She wants to call him but knows she shouldn't, for the same reason you don't let kids on summer camp call home the first couple of days. It would only make the homesickness worse. Her hands clench into fists instead. If he'd seen her do it, she knows he would have smiled. Not because her frustration and anger were amusing to him, but because he admired them. He'd been very angry and frustrated once (was still at times) but he had been bad at it (was still at times). 

Where Persephone is good at sensing the edges of her frustration, knowing how far it reached, which parts of her it shouldn't be able to touch, Hades lets it eat him alive. 

(He would have huffed out a laugh at that pun)

She likes to believe she's helped him be kinder with himself and reminds herself that if he'd been here with her now, he'd have told her that that doesn't mean she has to even it out. He knows she absorbs other people's anger well, that she fills a bit of her heart with all the injustice in the world, tries to fit it all in. Sometimes it spills. He reminds her that all of that doesn't mean she is not allowed to be gentle with herself as well. 

She tries to be kind with herself that day and makes flowers flood the bushes on her way home. 

**ii.**

That night, Persephone falls asleep curled into herself, hands now clenched around her soft summer sheets and she is glad she has her own apartment to return to instead of her mother's house because she doesn't think she would have been able to keep up with the happiness that Demeter tries to stick into everything whenever her daughter is with her. She isn't happy today. She is just tired.

The buzzing of her phone doesn't wake her immediately. She is stuck in dream-waking limbo for a couple of seconds before she wrenches her eyes open and answers without looking at the caller ID. There is silence on the other side of the line as she throws her arm over her eyes, stifling a yawn, waiting.

"It's late."

Suddenly, her heart aches. She keeps quiet, listening to soft breathing.

"I didn't think you'd pick up."

Her fingers clench around her phone as she turns on her side, staring at the darkness of her wall, tracing some of the indents with her fingers.

"Persephone?"

His voice is so soft. Like he's talking to a wounded animal, carefully, uncertainly approaching. She isn't an animal and she definitely doesn't need to be carefully approached. 

It takes her a second to realise that maybe she's not the wounded one. 

One beat of silence before a whispered, "yes." 

His breath hitches. If she closes her eyes, she can imagine him, also with his eyes shut, relief flooding his face, his shoulders losing the day's stiffness. His posture had always been terrible and it got even worse after he spent a long day behind that damned desk of his. She'd once amusedly suggested he try some yoga. 

"It's late," he repeats, but it sounds like an apology. 

"It's late." she mumbles back, but she's smiling, stifling another yawn, licking her lips and tasting all the questions she wants to ask him. _Why are you calling so late? Did something bad happen? Are you all right?_ Before any of them can make it past, she stops herself. Instead, she goes with something simpler. "How's Spot?"

She can practically hear the smile growing on his face. " _Cerberus_ ," he says with emphasis, "is doing just fine, thanks for asking."

"At some point you have got to stop acting like you didn't call your dog Spot."

"I didn't -- He's named Spo-- Cerberus, he's named Cerberus!" He's trying to sound dignified in his response but the chuckle she hears looming at the end of his words kind of diminishes the effect it's supposed to have. "You can't keep acting like you don't know what his name is."

"You know that even though nobody actually does the whole Ancient Greek thing any more, we all still know that you called that cute little puppy of yours Spot and tried to cover it up," she teases.

"He's a three-headed dog!" She hears him fall back on the mattress and shuffle around a bit as she laughs at him. 

"Cute. Little. Puppy."

While she's away, she sometimes forgets how easily happy she feels when she's talking to him. _This is why you weren't supposed to call_ , she wants to tell him, but doesn't. Instead she basks in the sound of his quiet laughter and imagines surprise visits to his office, imagines walks through the snow with Cerberus, imagines playfully berating him for letting his basil plant whither but making it flourish while he's got his back turned anyway. 

"I shouldn't have called," he says. 

"Don't apologise," she tells him, even though he didn't. 

"I woke you up."

"Please don't apologise," she repeats, and then, because she thinks he needs to hear her say it (she knows the anxiety weighing down his thoughts might feel a little less heavy after she does), "I'm glad you called."

She doesn't say _I miss you_ because she knows he knows that and she doesn't say _I hate this_ because he knows that too and she definitely doesn't say _I love you_ because her heart is racing already and she shivers when she hears the intake of a sharp breath and she's not sure she'd want him to say it back. She can't be sure her heart won't jump out of her chest to go find him if he does. 

He doesn't reply, and she doesn't need him to. 

A quiet settles over them. There's a spider creeping over her wall.

"There's a spider on my wall," she informs him casually, already knowing what his response is going to be. 

He huffs out a laugh. 

"Don't kill it," he tells her.

"I won't."

"I know you won't." 

She yawns again and this time he catches her.

"You should go back to sleep," he says gently.

"Don't tell me what to do," she mutters as she presses her face deeper into the pillow, but there's no heat in her voice. 

She doesn't want him to hang up and yet she knows it'll be better if they don't drag this out. They've become good at saying good bye, as far as that's a point one can excel at. She hates it. Apparently he's come to the same conclusion, because he sets the saying of good byes in motion. 

"Sweet dreams, love," he says. After all this time he still blushes when he lets that particular affection slip. She wishes she was there to press her cheek against his and feel the heat of it radiate through her veins. 

"You too. We'll talk soon." It's not a question. There's a silence and for a second she's afraid he's hung up already. "Hades?" 

"Yeah?" he breathes out. 

"Thank you. For calling." The _I needed this today_ goes unsaid. 

One of them hangs up. Or maybe they do it at the same time. They'd become really good at this. _Too good_ , she thinks as she pulls the covers up to her chin. Maybe she'd been wrong, before, because even though her heart aches for him and his voice and his dog and his plants, the tiredness that had been stuck in her bones before doesn't weigh down as heavily any more. 

She closes her eyes and realises they never actually say good bye.

**Author's Note:**

> come talk to me on [tumblr](http://astereal.tumblr.com)!


End file.
